Related Articles

Kermit Cintron is one of those fighters, a fighter who is very capable but yet rarely fights at his full potential. When he does fight to his potential, he can be hard work for any top welterweight out there.

Cintron, 33-4-1, Puerto Rican but fighting out of Houston Texas, also has 28 KO’s and so with a KO ratio of 73%, it is safe to say he has heavy hands. Although technically, he hasn’t knocked out any of his opponents over 147 lbs.

Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez is the up and coming star of the show, in a classic Mexico vs, Puerto Rico showdown, which takes place this evening at Monumental Plaza de Toros in Mexico City.

Alvarez is 38-0-1, also with 28 KO’s. Alvarez has also spent the majority of his fights in the welterweight division but seeing as this is for the WBC light middleweight title, it will be at 154.

Unlike Cintron, Alvarez has knocked people out at 154 lbs.

Alvarez is the better boxer as well, while Cintron can box and move and yes, he can hit, but his defence has not been the best at times and he is always unpredictable.

Take, for instance, when Cintron was fighting Paul Williams at 154 lbs back in May, 2010. The fight started slow but was gently warming up when Williams tagged Cintron and Cintron tagged Williams back. It was good back and forth action and from nowhere, Cintron fell into Williams, who turned his man and Cintron literally flew headfirst through the ropes, landing on the judges below.

Apparently, Cintron wanted to continue, but the ringside physician said Kermit had a head injury and whisked him off to hospital, neck brace, stretcher and all. Now, I do not doubt the validity of the injury but it looked like no attempt was really made by Cintron to continue.

In comparison, I turn to Junior Witter, who in a Prize-fighter tournament earlier this year did exactly the same thing. Weird, isn’t it? Something you would never expect to see happen in a boxing ring…and it happens twice in a year!

Witter flew out the ring; it looked a much harder fall than Cintron’s and he even got up cut over the eye, whether that was from the fall or a fist I don’t know, but Witter jumped straight up and got back into the ring, unfazed and ready to continue the action.

That’s what fans want to see; it was almost like Cintron saw a hard night's work ahead of him and thought, "I could get out of this one".

Then there was the Sergio Martinez debacle. Cintron started well, it was, again, warming up nicely, and Martinez caught Cintron with a straight southpaw left. Cintron went down, and didn’t beat the count.

But he started complaining of a head butt while the slow motion cameras showed us what we all knew anyway, it was a punch. Cintron literally threw all his toys out the pram and stomped around the ring thinking he had been counted out on a head butt…which was clearly a punch.

After a few moments of Cintron and his team pressuring the referee, the ref decides it was a head butt, and asks them to resume the action. Now, all of this could be the ref’s fault, or perhaps Cintron genuinely did not see the punch and thought it was a head butt.

They fought on to a draw, which incidentally I had Martinez up on, and Cintron looked the happiest of bunnies, even jumping up on the ropes and gyrating his hips to the crowd….really? Over a draw? In a fight you clearly lost…by KO!

When Cintron fought Antonio Margarito for the first time, Margarito walked straight through him. The second time they fought… Margarito walked straight through him. Both times, Cintron could not cope with the pressure and both fights never went past the middle rounds.

Cintron cried at the end of both, that’s no bad thing, Felix Trinidad cried after losing, but he fought like he wanted to win, he fought with passion, he dug in deep. Cintron didn’t.

Perhaps Cintron's best days are well and truly behind him now and he will settle nicely into the role of gatekeeper, a part he could play very well.

Still, he put on a good performance against Alfredo Angulo in mid 2009; Angulo was a pressure fighter, perhaps not quite as big as Margarito, but still a hard fight for Cintron. One that I thought Cintron would lose. That was probably the last time Cintron had a great night.

That win over Angulo is the only thing that is stopping me from declaring this fight to be an Alvarez domination. A lot has passed since Cintron beat Angulo though.

Alvarez really is a talented young fighter, and this still will be his hardest test to date, depending on which Cintron turns up, But let’s assume a Cintron that wants to win turns up, against whom Alvarez will have a fight on his hands, but then Alvarez relishes a fight.

Alvarez will be far too quick for Cintron, and he will hit harder too. In yet another classic Mexico vs. Puerto Rico battle, Alvarez will stop Cintron in the later rounds.